The present invention generally relates to building structures, and more particularly, relates to building wall panels.
The walls of many modern buildings are formed by interconnecting a plurality of units together to form the desired matrix. These units are often preassembled and shipped to the building site to be connected together to form the building walls. Examples of such wall units are the precast concrete units and the curtain wall units. The curtain wall construction is non-load bearing, and the precast concrete wall is very heavy and difficult to ship and install.
The acoustical and thermal properties of these known wall panels have fallen short of requirements, and, accordingly, new forms of wall panels are required to meet modern building requirements. In fact, many prefabricated walls have not been designed with acoustical considerations in mind at all, and furthermore, many of the known panels require special caulking.
Some precast concrete panels have foam added to them to improve thermal properties of those panels. However, such constructions have not been entirely satisfactory, especially from the standpoint of thermal insulation properties.
The present invention is embodied in a load bearing panel unit which is a very good acoustical and thermal insulator as compared to known constructions.